I’ve been having an extremely annoying time with my Windows XP installation over the past several months. I installed or changed something, and now my Explorer crashes at the drop of a hat, locking up every program that utilizes it (i.e., Outlook Express, Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer, PSPad [my HTML editor], FileZilla [my FTP client], Paint Shop Pro…the list goes on) and requiring me to reboot my system often, sometimes several times a day.

The worst part is that these programs that cause the lock-up (or die from the lock-up, who knows?) are programs I use often, both in my hobbies and any work I manage to get. Webdesign is a LOT less fun when it means running the necessary software makes your computer crash repeatedly.

I’ve done my share of Googling to try to find some sort of solution or work-around, but nothing I’ve tried so far has worked. I really, really, REALLY don’t want to have to reinstall XP (or upgrade to Vista, for that matter), since I have a lot of programs installed that I use often. Reinstalling them takes days, even weeks — and trust me, I know this from experience — which would put a huge dent in my available work time, as well as my hobby and gaming time. Let’s face it: All my friends live in this box. :p

I suppose my dilemma is this: Which is more time-consuming, rebooting my computer 15 times a day, or reinstalling XP and all my programs?